Credulous persons are possessed with an idea that there is
a " movement" of some sort or other, in some part of the United Kingdom. One journal, eminently conscious of the footsteps that resound in the approaches of its own office, thinks that the kingdom shakes to the echo of the feet astir in the Financial Reform Association : but all is as quiet as—what shall we say, adequately to express the repose ?—as Mr. Cobden's speech. An- other will have it that there is a "movement" among the farmers, to extort renewal of protection by abstinence from the use of factory-made clothing! Some jolly-faced sage has discovered that measures have been carried by associations, and he has im• pressed a few others with the bright idea that the farmers may attain their ends by using the same instrument. But the imita- tion is "spontaneous," and so it is accepted as a genuine " move- ment." Somebody has found out a movement in Spitalfields, for protection. A movement in an ant's nest ! And even practised politicians are impressed with the movement in Fermanagh against Lord John Russell's "rate in aid " ; as if stir in Ireland were a novelty, or the hint that Irishmen should pay were not always received by them as a breach of privilege. The temper of the Fermanagh meeting, indeed, forebodes no easy seat for Ministers; but it is only the newest form of " difficulty "—the synonyme for Ireland, until statesmen learn to grasp the nettle.
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